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Diffractive Lightsail
A diffractive solar sail, or diffractive lightsail, is a type of solar sail which relies on diffraction instead of Reflection (physics), reflection for its propulsion. Current diffractive sail designs use thin metamaterial films, containing micrometer-size gratings based on Polarization (waves), polarization or subwavelength refractive structures, causing light to spread out (i.e. diffract) and thereby exert radiation pressure when it passes through them. History The idea of using diffraction for a solar sail was first proposed in 2017 by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This was enabled in part by advances in material design and fabrication (particularly of gratings), and Optoelectronics, optoelectronic control engineering, control. In 2019 a diffractive solar sail project from the Rochester Institute of Technology suggested a solar orbit, solar polar orbit mission with diffractive sails that could reach a higher solar inclination angle and smaller orbital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diffractive Solar Sail Concept Art
Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the Wave propagation, propagating wave. Diffraction is the same physical effect as Wave interference, interference, but interference is typically applied to superposition of a few waves and the term diffraction is used when many waves are superposed. Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the word ''diffraction'' and was the first to record accurate observations of the phenomenon in 1660 in science, 1660. In classical physics, the diffraction phenomenon is described by the Huygens–Fresnel principle that treats each point in a propagating wavefront as a collection of individual spherical wavelets. The characteristic pattern is most pronounced when a wave from a Coherence (physics), coherent source (such as a laser) encounters a slit/aperture tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
